An Examination of Political Attitudes and Behavior Using Regulatory Focus Theory

Using Regulatory Focus Theory (RFT, Higgins 1997), I take a broad look at the manner in which political behaviors and attitudes are impacted by the promotion and prevention motivational systems. I first look at how behavior in life generally and political life specifically are similar in terms of regulatory focus. Second, I look at how RFT is related to political attitudes. Specifically, I look at whether there is a connection between regulatory focus and ideological attitudes, whether there is a relationship between policy context and motivational systems, and whether the status quo of a policy leads to a relationship between focus and issue attitudes. Finally, I look at how regulatory fit impacts the intention to vote as well as attitudes related to casting a ballot. I look at process based regulatory fit by interacting a person’s chronic regulatory focus and how they behave in political life. I also analyze outcome based fit by manipulating focus and the content of a Get Out the Vote message. I examine these topics by using three separate studies – two surveys and one experiment. I show people generally use either eager or vigilant strategies across both every day and political life. I also show that people who use eager strategies vote for their preferred candidate while those using vigilant strategies are more likely to blackball disliked candidates. My findings show a much stronger connection between a general proclivity to use eager strategies and holding a promotion orientation than prevention focus and using vigilant strategies. In addition, I find that the environment in which people are politically active impacts attitudes. For example, the current status quo of a policy impacts how regulatory focus is related to issue attitudes. Also, under certain conditions, the combination of focus and strategy use can increase external efficacy and positive attitudes related to voting. Overall, people’s motivational systems color their view of the political world and how they relate to it. Advisor: John R. Hibbin

Buried heterostructure vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser with semiconductor mirrors

We report a buried heterostructure vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser fabricated by epitaxial regrowth over an InGaAs quantum well gain medium. The regrowth technique enables microscale lateral confinement that preserves a high cavity quality factor (loaded $Q\approx$ 4000) and eliminates parasitic charging effects found in existing approaches. Under optimal spectral overlap between gain medium and cavity mode (achieved here at $T$ = 40 K) lasing was obtained with an incident optical power as low as $P_{\rm th}$ = 10 mW ($\lambda_{\rm p}$ = 808 nm). The laser linewidth was found to be $\approx$3 GHz at $P_{\rm p}\approx$ 5 $P_{\rm th}$

Quantum dot photonic crystal lasers

Coupled cavity designs on two-dimensional square lattice photonic crystal slabs were used to demonstrate optically pumped indium arsenide quantum dot photonic crystal lasers at room temperature. Threshold pump powers of 120 and 370 μW were observed for coupled cavities including two and four defect cavities defined in optimised photonic crystals

Critical Collapse in Einstein-Gauss-Bonnet Gravity in Five and Six Dimensions

Einstein-Gauss-Bonnet gravity (EGB) provides a natural higher dimensional and higher order curvature generalization of Einstein gravity. It contains a new, presumably microscopic, length scale that should affect short distance properties of the dynamics, such as Choptuik scaling. We present the results of a numerical analysis in generalized flat slice co-ordinates of self-gravitating massless scalar spherical collapse in five and six dimensional EGB gravity near the threshold of black hole formation. Remarkably, the behaviour is universal (i.e. independent of initial data) but qualitatively different in five and six dimensions. In five dimensions there is a minimum horizon radius, suggestive of a first order transition between black hole and dispersive initial data. In six dimensions no radius gap is evident. Instead, below the GB scale there is a change in the critical exponent and echoing period.Comment: 21 pages, 39 figures, a couple of references and two new figures adde

Semiconductor laser monolithically pumped with a light emitting diode operating in the thermoelectrophotonic regime

Data are presented on a monolithic chip that integrates a quantum well semiconductor laser with a high efficiency light emitting diode (LED), with the LED used to optically pump the laser. The LED operates in the thermoelectrophotonic regime that can produce heat absorption, offering the possibility of heat pump action. The internal optical pumping also offers the possibility of very low internal loss in the laser and the prospect of reaching greater than unity power conversion efficiency in the laser chip. The integrated laser chip is operated and tested under continuous-wave room temperature operation

Scanning a photonic crystal slab nanocavity by condensation of xenon

Allowing xenon or nitrogen gas to condense onto a photonic crystal slab nanocavity maintained at 10–20 K results in shifts of the nanocavity mode wavelength by as much as 5 nm (~=4 meV). This occurs in spite of the fact that the mode defect is achieved by omitting three holes to form the spacer. This technique should be useful in changing the detuning between a single quantum dot transition and the nanocavity mode for cavity quantum electrodynamics experiments, such as mapping out a strong coupling anticrossing curve. Compared with temperature scanning, it has a much larger scan range and avoids phonon broadening

High spontaneous emission coupling factor in photonic crystal nanolasers

We have demonstrated high spontaneous emission coupling factor ~ 0.1 from photonic crystal nanolasers with quantum dots. This high coupling resulted from narrow homogenous broadening of the quantum dots and the small number of resonances